England Selection Appreciation Thread

Thank you England, for allowing us to retain the ashes.

We were hoping that Ravi Flopara, the biggest dud to ever play no 3 in the ashes, would be retained for this test. Maybe Glenn McGrath could give him some batting advice. Thank you also for selecting "can't bowl, can't bat" Stuart Broad, whose ambition in life is to be a centrefold in a women's magazine. It really makes the job easier when you select all-round-fail superstars for a potentially series deciding test. Finally, thank you sincerely for giving Vaughan the arse, as we could do without England having a batsman who has outrageously gone against the preferred trend of scoring most his runs against West Indies and Bangladesh.

Maybe you could change the eligibility rules and allow Jacques Rudolph (a seriously good cricketer) to bat no 3 for you...

It doesn't matter who England select. None of these nonces pretending to be batsman have a got a clue in anything like helpful bowling conditions and none of the bowlers are capable of bowling the right length two balls on the trott.

have to agree with Bopara but Broad probably gets more stick than he should, out of the entire line up

Strauss-quality world class player
Cook-pretty good
Bopara-lets be honest less of an international player than bresnan, if he was a bowler hed be long gone
Bell-would be good if he had a bit of discipline
Collingwood-more than worth his place
Prior-Best we've got, and alot more use than the whole batting line up except for strauss
Broad-scores enough runs to keep a place, and hell come good with the ball, and lets be honest with the batting line up weve got we need the runs
Swann-Good spinner, far better than the alternatives
Harmison-lets be fair sidebottom should of played at Headingley
Onions-Didnt think much to him until Lords, he showed hes got class there
Anderson-Class act one of the best swing bowlers in the world

At least the Australian selectors had the brains to realise Hughes wasnt ready yet and dropped him. The continual selection of Bopara is .... puzzling. Does the guy have photos of the English selectors in compromising positions and is blackmailing them?

I know people have been critical of English selectors in the past of dropping people too quickly. But being stupid in the opposite direction doesnt fix anything.

I know people have been critical of English selectors in the past of dropping people too quickly. But being stupid in the opposite direction doesnt fix anything.

Well, it's far better to show too much faith in a player than too little - and the mythical middle-ground is just that, mythical. In essence, you only get credit for retaining a player once it starts to pay-off - until then you're always criticised, which is plain wrong, as criticising the output of a decision rather than the logic behind it always is.

As for Vaughan, if anyone honestly believes that his presence would've altered things in England's favour they really don't know much about cricket.

Believe it or not, this is Test cricket. The only future that matters is the next match, and the current series. And more so than ever in an Ashes.

If I believed Ramprakash was the best bet for this upcoming match, or any upcoming match down the line, I'd pick him. However, I'd have done the same for the last 7 years if I believed so, and frankly it's difficult to justify doing such a thing because Ramprakash had umpteen chances and failed dismally for the first 4-and-a-half years of his Test career. That means that people were reluctant to give him any more chances from 2002 onwards, and that should be no different now to ever.

Thank you also for selecting "can't bowl, can't bat" Stuart Broad, whose ambition in life is to be a centrefold in a women's magazine. It really makes the job easier when you select all-round-fail superstars for a potentially series deciding test.